Hilary Hahn

CHARLES IVES 4 Violin Sonatas Hilary Hahn 4779435

She has a keen sense for combining opposites and making them shine together.

Interview /
Tom Huizenga,
NPR (Washington) / 21. October 2011

. . . one of today's leading violinists here champions Ives, rendering his four little-known sonatas with inimitable polish and commitment. Collaborating dynamically with Lisitsa, a star in her own right, Hahn transcends the music's complexity to deliver sensual, boldly exuberant performances. Listen especially to the second sonata, whose stream of folk allusions Hahn rides nearly over the top.

A patchwork of hymns and once-popular tunes set to jangling harmonies, off-kilter rhythms and unexpected intervals, Charles Ives' sonatas for violin and piano can seem to require coordination not only from performers but also from listeners. Yet without toning the pieces down, Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa make them fairly accessible. With a strong rapport, they draw out the works' rustic lyricism and dance-like moments as well as their quirky restlessness with characteristically brilliant technical facility and irresistible zeal. In the more popular third violin sonata, Hahn begins with an expansive, prairie song quality even as insinuating piano chromatics toy with its mood. Transitions ¿ as they do throughout ¿ feel remarkably natural as the piece grows into emphatic, percussive passages, a melodic refrain with a blues-singer vibe, a toe-tapping section and a tensely escalating finale. Hahn charms in the folksy fiddling music of the second movement of the second sonata ("In the Barn") and the rich blend of nostalgia and mischief in the challenging first sonata is even more rewarding.

Record Review /
Ronni Reich,
Star Ledger (Newark) / 11. November 2011

In their brilliant, irresistible new recording the sonatas sound warm and spiky, daring and satisfying, infusing the hymns, songs and dances of American history with bold harmonies and rhythms. Ms. Hahn and Ms. Lisitsa share a tone simultaneously rounded and focused. Both players do exactly what this quicksilver music needs, changing tone and mood in an instant without sacrificing energy and concentration on either side of the shift. Just listen to the drama of the transitions in the sprawling first movement of the Third Sonata or the gracefulness of the acceleration into the Allegretto in the third movement of the Second. The sonatas confidently negotiate the lines between sentimentality and astringency, modernism and Romanticism, that composers are still dealing with. Ms. Hahn and Ms. Lisitsa's clear, powerful readings provide all Ives's qualities still worth emulating: honesty, sincerity, brave individuality . . . This disc feels entirely current, entirely useful. It's for listening to while jogging or walking to work. It is the fall-est of fall music. But it will sound fantastic all year round.

Record Review /
Zachary Woolfe,
The New York Times / 02. December 2011

Of all America's youngish violinists, Hahn has always been the most adventurous, with the best blend of brain and heart: a few years back she even made Schoenberg's Violin Concerto sing. And it's a joy to hear her playing these Ives pieces, solidly partnered by the Ukraine-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa. As she did with Schoenberg, Hahn goes out of her way to spotlight the music's lyrical throb, driving forward urgently, sometimes at speed, always sweetening the melodictangles with her agile bowing and tightly controlled vibrato. As she glidesdown the hymn-tune cadences and distant residues of Brahms there's a bloom in her tone ¿ just as there is, for all her quick vim, in the numerous spurts of ragtime dancing, a strong feature of the second violin sonata's middle movement, In the Barn . . . Romantic and modern at the same time, nostalgic and transcendental, soaked in America's old rural ways, yet alive to the sounds of the new 20th century: there's nothing here to be scared of.

Record Review /
Geoff Brown,
The Times (London) / 02. December 2011

. . . Hahn has consistently shown an intelligence willing to go beyond the usual . . . Her chief trait as a player is an extremely graceful lyricism. She seems to intuit the shape of phrases . . . Of the performances of the sonatas I've heard, I think Hahn and Lisitsa easily the best . . . Under them, the music loses its bizarro quality and becomes poetic and even fun . . . Hahn and Lisitsa communicate not only with the listener, but with each other . . . they walk the same road, companionably and "naturally." It's like hearing a really good conversation. The sound is excellent, allowing both intimacy and clarity.

Record Review /
S.G.S.,
Classicalcdreview.com / 04. December 2011

. . . Hilary Hahn and pianist Valentina Lisitsa make a strong argument that we ought to be playing, programming and studying these pieces more often . . . it all tends to favor the violin's most melodious qualities. It's full of interesting discoveries, and I find it grows on me.

Record Review /
Laurie Niles,
Violinist (Blog) / 05. December 2011

A century on, Charles Ives's music remains bracing and quirky, like a daguerreotype of an American landscape warped by a funhouse mirror. The four violin-piano sonatas here get appropriately sepia-toned and lyrical readings from thoughtful star violinist Hahn and pianist Lisitsa.

Record Review /
Amanda MacBlane,
Time Out (New York) / 11. December 2011

You could hardly wish for a more bountiful meeting of prominent performer and marginalized repertoire than this engaging match between fastidious, curious violinist Hilary Hahn (warmly supported by pianist Valentina Lisitsa) and Ives's gangly, gregarious sonatas.

Record Review /
Amanda MacBlane,
Time Out (New York) / 11. December 2011

Violinist Hilary Hahn, who has finally left behind prodigy status and is being recognized for the audacious musician that she is, has recorded all four of Ives's violin sonatas with the excellent pianist Valentina Lisitsa (Deutsche Grammophon). The duo makes this complex, iconoclastic music sound luminously beautiful . . . This could be a perfect introduction to Ives for your favorite skeptic of 20th-century music.

Record Review /
David Weininger,
Boston Globe / 23. December 2011

Her tone is very clean . . . Her playing suggests the word "honesty", fully appropriate for Ives . . . [the performances] wear well . . . [Lisitsa] and Hahn have obviously come to full agreement -- they play as one, each taking the lead as the music requires . . . Deutsche Grammophon provides fine sound . . . I have no hesitation recommending Hahn/Lisitsa as a first choice for this wonderful music.